Fiji's superyacht marina, Port Denarau Marina Ltd (PDM) today listed its shares on the Suva-based South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPX) following an oversubscribed Initial Public Offer (IPO) that saw it sell down over 11 million shares, three million more than its initial intention of 8 million.

This has brought 600 new shareholders to the company after Day One of trading.

Data released by SPX today saw a total of 11,640,943 PDM shares with a total value of F$14.95 million changing hands.

That included a special trade of six million shares facilitated at a discounted price of F$1.26 per share and brokers confirmed this was from an institutional investor.

PDM shares opened at its IPO price of F$1.31 and gained 9 cents to end the day at F$1.40 per share.

Griffon Emose, managing director of Kontiki Capital Ltd, parent company of lead broker Kontiki Stockbroking, described the take up as "really good", helped in a big way by the company's already established reputation.

"Just to be clear, this wasn't a capital raising exercise. It was actually a sell down of shares. PDM before this only had one shareholder, from New Zealand, but in order to list on SPX, you have to meet certain criteria. One criteria is you have to have at least 20 per cent of your shares held by the public and you have to have a minimum of 50 shareholders. PDM didn't need the funds as the company is already well funded. So they had to sell down the shares in order to meet the criteria of listing on SPX," Emose said.

He said while most buyers – about 95 percent – were from Fiji, overseas investors also came on board, from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the United States of America.

"The minimum was for F$500 worth of shares and we had some that came in with several millions of dollars. Some institutional investors also came in." Emose said.

He said SPX's ability to directly approve foreign investors to buy and sell shares on the stock exchange has made it easier for foreign investors to participate in Fiji's share market.

"SPX is open to everybody and the good thing is the government has delegated to the stock exchange the ability to allow foreign investors to come into the market. Normally, foreign investors would need to obtain foreign investors approval, so that has been delegated to SPX but only for trading in listed companies," said Emose.

PDM director Nigel Skeggs described the day as a special one for the company, which has been in his family for 20 years and under his stewardship since 2006.

"There were several reasons for us choosing to be on the stock exchange but the primary one is that the marina being such an important tourism infrastructure for Fiji, we felt that after 20 years of us developing it, we needed to look at some Fiji ownership. So we really want the public of Fiji to get involved, it was a way of giving back to Fiji and we had a lot of support. And of course, obviously there are the incentives that come with listing on the stock exchange, in particular the 10 percent company tax," Skeggs told IB Online.

PDM is now the first tourism related company to list on SPX and there are hopes that this would be followed by more listings from the sector.

There has been an overwhelming response to the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Port Denarau Marina Ltd currently open in Fiji.

The IPO, which closes on Tuesday, sees 20 percent of the company, an equivalent of 8 million shares, being offered to the Fijian public at F$1.31 per share.

"There has been overwhelming response. This public offer comes one year after the last listing which was Kontiki Finance Ltd," South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPX ) CEO Krishika Narayan told IB Online.

"What's different in this public offering is that we've seen a lot of advertising go through social media and actually people getting to know about the stock market and they've been enquiring, if you just look at how people have been reacting in the social media to this. So it's somewhat different to the other public offerings and the traditional forms of using the media to come to the stock market. So in that sense, we've seen a generally overwhelming response from the public," Narayan added.

Port Denarau Marina Ltd will be the 21st company to list on the SPX, but the first from the tourism sector.

"A lot depends on the success of this particular listing and how we go forward in terms of having other tourism based listings," Narayan said.

Some incentives of listing on SPX include a reduced corporate tax rate of 10 percent for listed companies, tax-free dividends for shareholders, and other tax free benefits.

PDML plans to use the funds to help finance future expansion plans and current developments including a new Marina reception, amenities and office block, and expansion of the superyacht marina, which is due for completion later this year.